


Keep You Like An Oath

by SoManyRegrets



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Las Vegas, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoManyRegrets/pseuds/SoManyRegrets
Summary: Dan and Phil accidentally get married. It doesn't cause an international incident, but it might as well have done.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Dan, piss off. (This is a lie, we are liars, and everything we say is lies.)
> 
> This is a multi-chapter monstrosity, and it will be long. And because we're both working girls (though not _that_ kind of working girl), we don't know when we'll next be able to update. We'll try our best, but patience is always appreciated. Hope you enjoy!

Phil was innocently asleep when a solid weight landed in the middle of his back.

“Ow f-”

“Phil. PhilPhilPhilPhil. Wake up.”

“No.”

“It’s our last day here and we’ve hardly done anything.”

“Apart from talk to thousands of people every day for the last three days?” Phil sat up and blinked lambently. “I’ve filled my quota of human interaction for the next year. From now on, it’s me, my camera and maybe a torrid affair with the fridge.”

“I’ll just move out, then, shall I?” Dan clambered over him, narrowly avoiding elbowing Phil in the balls, and sat on the pillow next to him. “But no, shut up, it’s our last day here, we’re in _Vegas_ , VidCon’s over and we can actually have some fun without being swamped by subscribers who want their pound of flesh.”

“We have to be nice to them, they’re our bread-and-butter,” Phil said sententiously, flailing around for his glasses. Dan handed them to him. “Thanks.”

“My point,” Dan said slowly, “is that Jack found this really cool bar-casino down the road, and-”

“A bar-casino down the road? In Vegas? You don’t say,” Phil said, making his way to the bathroom with some urgency.

“I’m the sarcastic asshole in this relationship,” Dan retorted, following him. “Not you. Stop it.”

“This is my stop,” Phil told him firmly as they reached the bathroom, and shut the door. “ _Boundaries_ ,” he told his reflection. “We need some.”

“I can hear you,” Dan carolled through the door.

“Please tell me you haven’t got your ear pressed to the door, listening to your flatmate pee,” Phil called back. “ _Please_.”

Dan huffed. “Of course not,” he said, insulted. “I’m using a glass to amplify the sound.”

“Stop it, no,” Phil whined, leaning against the counter. “You know I can’t pee when people are listening.”

“Horribly, yes, I do know that,” Dan admitted. “Fine, I’ll be on the bed.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Phil said, heart-felt.

“Performance anxiety?” Dan asked solicitously, clearly still outside the door.

“Leave,” Phil implored, and heard Dan snigger, followed by the thump of a body hitting a mattress.

**

“So,” he said, having completed his morning ablutions, coming out of the bathroom to find Dan sprawled sideways on his bed. “What’s so special about this casino that I should be interested? And actually, you know, leave my room?”

“It’s based on the Moulin Rouge,” Dan told him smugly. His eyes were shut. “Like, there’s windmills. And people wear corsets. And there’s like, a ton of glitter everywhere. And,” he added, as a final parting shot, “there’s a rope-swing.”

Phil thought for a bare second. “…OK, I’m in,” he caved.

“Thought you would be,” Dan said even more smugly. “We’re going at six, cos everyone’s leaving tomorrow and we don’t want to be out super late.”

“And you woke me up at ten to tell me that… why?” Phil asked, pushing his wet fringe out of his eyes.

“Because I love you and I must be near you always,” Dan deadpanned, his eyes still shut. “Also, breakfast is finishing soon, and you made that threat about having waffles every morning, and I knew if you didn’t get them you’d sulk for, like, a week. And I hate it when you sulk. You do it really loudly.”

“There’s this magical thing called room-service,” Phil told him, sitting on the bed.

“You complain about room-service every time,” Dan returned, his voice going muzzy. “And there’s – the pool…”

Phil side-eyed him for a moment, then grinned to himself. “Are you falling asleep in my bed?” he asked, and Dan nodded slowly.

“Li’l bit,” he slurred. “Sorry. Go get waffles.”

Phil considered his options for a moment, then clambered into bed. “If you can sleep, I can sleep,” he said, with easy logic. “I’ll get room-service waffles.”

“Kay,” Dan nodded. Then he was asleep.

**

Phil hadn’t been this drunk in a long, long time. The world had gone pleasantly blurry, everything was lovely, and Tyler was pressing another shot into his hand while Phil laughed and shook his head – then drank it anyway. Over the other side of their table, Dan was talking to Caspar, animated and tactile in a way that meant Dan was very, very happy and very, very drunk.

Phil grinned to himself and watched as the lights in the casino spun in a lazy circle.

That was the last thing he remembered for quite a while.

When he woke up, it was to a pounding headache and the knowledge that he was not alone in his bed. When he could bring himself to turn his head, he sighed in relief at the sight of Dan, passed out and drooling on the pillow next to him. Phil was naked, but drunk-him had no truck with pyjamas, and nor did Dan, whether sober or drunk, so that wasn’t unusual. The only thing that was unusual about this set-up was the pounding headache, and that could be dealt with.

He forced himself to a tentative sitting position, then, when he was sure he wasn’t going to vomit or cry, managed to get himself into the bathroom, where he drank four glasses of water in quick succession, rooting in his spongebag for ibuprofen. Swallowing them with another cup of water, he staggered grimly back to bed, shoved Dan over to his own side, collapsed into it and drifted off again.

**

Something very loud was hammering in Dan’s brain.

“Whaaaa,” he demanded of the world, then opened his eyes, cringing away from reality as the headache hit him in full force. “Oh God,” he moaned, clutching his head. The hammering noise was still going.

He turned to look, and yes, sure enough, there was Phil, next to him in the bed, just a shock of black hair and a pained expression even in sleep.

Well, that was one less thing to worry about.

Dan’s overstressed mind eventually connected the hammering with the sound of someone knocking on the door, and he forced himself upright, stumbling over to the door and yanking it open.

Louise cleared her throat, and Dan edged the rest of his naked self belatedly behind the door. Darcy, bright-eyed on Louise’s hip, was already looking a little too interested. She opened her mouth to make some kind of damning comment and Louise beat her to it, stepping back and delicately covering Darcy’s mouth and nose to protect her from the alcoholic fug that was the air in the bedroom, already permeating into the hallway.

“Morning, handsome,” she said cheerfully. Dan managed a dismal grunt in reply and rested his head against the doorjamb. “We’re leaving for the airport in a couple of hours – I just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the flight. Is Phil in there by any chance?”

“S’Phil’s room,” Dan pointed out unhelpfully. He wasn’t sure of many facts this morning, but he recognised the detritus scattered about the room as ‘Not His – Therefore Phil’s’.

“Yes, why _are_ you in Phil’s- oh, wait, it’s you. Of course you’re in Phil’s room. Is he alive?”

“Pretty sure he’s breathing,” Dan said slowly.

“OK, well, if you can get yourself packed and downstairs in the next hour or so, they’ll still be serving lunch.”

“Lunch?” Dan echoed pathetically.

“It’s one o’clock, hon,” Louise said kindly. “Come on. Get Phil up, get dressed, get packed, get fed, get to the airport. _Please_ have a shower somewhere in that list. We have to be checked out by three at the latest.”

“And our flight’s at…?”

“Six. Darce and I’ll be by the pool if you want us.”

Dan mumbled something in reply – he wasn’t sure what – and closed the door. After the fresh air of the hallway, the vile alcohol-and-sleep tainted fug of the room was unbearable, and he stumbled over to the window, ignoring the shooting pains brought on by the sunshine, and threw open the French windows, recoiling from the warm breeze.

There was a hissing noise from the bed that he recognised as Phil’s natural Northern reaction to sunshine and fresh air.

“Phil?”

“Mnargh?”

“You awake?”

“Don’t want to be.”

“We’ve got to get up.”

“No we don’t. Time is an illusion.”

“Waffles aren’t an illusion.”

“Please don’t mention food. I will be sick.”

“It’s one in the afternoon. We’ve got to be on a plane in five hours. We’re leaving for the airport in, like, two.”

Phil made an inarticulate sound of protest, and burrowed further into the bed, and Dan saw that drastic tactics were called for.

Sighing, he yanked the covers off the bed.

“Nnnn,” Phil whined, curling up like a snail deprived of its shell, naked vulnerable body and all.

“Up,” Dan said heartlessly. “I’m going back to my room to shower and pack. Don’t go back to sleep. I’ll ring you every five minutes to make sure you’re awake.”

“You’re awful,” Phil-the-Snail told the pillow miserably.

“I’m the reason you function,” Dan told him, yanking on his jeans and heading for the door only half into his T-shirt. The pounding in his head was only getting worse, and he desperately needed some painkillers.

**

By the grace of god, they made it to the plane with all their belongings in the right place. It wasn’t the worst flight Dan had ever had, but on the other hand he wasn’t going to have fond memories of it. Next to him, Phil was white-knuckled in an attempt not to vomit down the back of the seat in front of him, thus endearing himself to the cabin crew forever and ensuring dedicated hate-service for the rest of their flight.

Dan wasn’t doing too badly, but then he made the mistake of looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. He recoiled in horror from the goblin-creature that stared back at him – pasty skin, sunken eyes, tinged green around the nose and mouth. His hair was visibly dusty from the dry shampoo, and his clothes were disreputably rumpled.

It was ironic, that for someone who hadn’t hooked up in Vegas, he looked like he’d been ridden hard and put away wet. He certainly didn’t look like someone who’d passed out in an unerotic heap in the same bed as his flatmate.

He looked, he thought, like a Vegas cliché.

Still, it could have been worse, he reflected, and went back to his seat to whimper for the next four hours.

Soon. Soon, they would be home.

**

As usual, the first few days after they got back from America were a whirlwind of clutter and jetlag. Dan, as per, put off unpacking for as long as possible, until Phil squinted at him over the screen of his laptop and sighed.

“You’ve worn that shirt three times in five days,” he pointed out.

“So?” Dan didn’t even look up from his computer.

“So, you need to unpack,” Phil said firmly. “Like, seriously. Before your clothes start singing about how they want to be a human too.”

“It’s not that bad,” Dan protested feebly.

“Please believe me when I say it is. _Please_.” Phil was grinning, so Dan didn’t throw a cushion at him.

“Fine,” he said with an ostentatious sigh, making a show of putting his laptop aside and standing, stretching the kinks out of his back. Phil had gone back to staring at his own computer. “I’ll unpack now. Tell me if you want anything washing.”

“No, but if you’re in the kitchen you could make me a coffee?” Phil said, hope defying experience.

“Fuck off,” Dan said fondly, and went down the corridor to his room.

**

Dan flung open his ignored suitcase and sat on the floor in front of it with a put-upon groan. “I hate unpacking,” he announced to the uncaring world, and dived in. For a few moments, it was the easy stuff – dirty clothes chucked to the right of the suitcase, clean clothes chucked to the left to be shuffled into a corner and become guilt-fodder. Then came the nitty-gritty bits and pieces of travelling – his various chargers had all had to be used by now, and had been rescued early on – likewise his toiletries had all been taken out. Which just left the layer of miscellaneous detritus at the bottom of his bag: adaptors, receipts, the boarding pass for the outward journey, sun cream, the stolen toiletries from the hotel and the same three books that he took everywhere with him, that he was always planning to read and which always remained unread.

Eventually, unsure of how to proceed, he upended his suitcase onto his bed, and grimly started sorting the mess into four piles. Things he used semi-regularly – straighteners, razor, dry shampoo – were put into a pile to be put back in the right place at some point when he could be bothered. Then there were things to throw away, things to go in the stuff draw, and things to be put Elsewhere, somewhere he wouldn’t notice them and wouldn’t have to think about them.

Then, because Phil would expect it, he gave a despairing groan, and moved over to his pile of dirty clothes to sort through them.

He’d separated them into lights and darks before he remembered the Great Wallet-Washing Incident of 2013 and groaned again – less for Phil’s benefit this time and more because there were so many pockets – and started going through his clothes to check for anything he might have left in them to be washed unawares.

“Why do I buy clothes with so many pockets,” he asked hopelessly, checking the second pair of black jeans for detritus and flinging them bitterly to one side when they turned out to be Safe To Wash. “I mean, why does anyone _need_ so many pockets? That’s a receipt, that’s a receipt, that’s a – nickel? Maybe? – that’s a receipt. Fucking receipts!”

“You OK?” Phil called from down the hall, and Dan wailed in reply. “Good,” Phil said cheerfully, and fell silent.

It was only when he hit the fifth pair of black jeans – recoiling because they stank of alcohol; he had a vague memory of Tyler gesturing expansively and tipping nearly a full glass of what smelt like petrol over Dan’s crotch – that he found anything even mildly intriguing. Surely nothing worth keeping could be _that_ shade of pink? He unfolded it and smoothed it out. The creases where it had been folded had already gone fuzzy and soft, though the paper itself was stiff and crisp.

He had to read it twice before he even understood what he was reading, cringing at how much money he must have spent at wherever this was – he’d expected it to be a posh receipt.

Then the words sank in, and he squinted and read them again.

“What the fuck?” he asked of the world at large, then decided to narrow his focus. “Phil!”

**

Phil listened to the sound of Dan swearing as he unpacked (“unpacked” – Phil knew from experience that Dan’s unpacking was mainly throwing things out of his suitcase and occasionally pausing to wail loudly), and grinned. It was good to be home. Even coming back to the two hundred and fourteen emails he had in his inbox was strangely comforting.

He was just considering making himself a coffee when there was a thud, and then Dan poked his head round the door.

“You done?” Phil asked, wondering if there was any chance of coercing a coffee out of Dan after all.

“Oh. No. But I found this in one of my pockets, and I thought you should have a look.”

“What is it?” Phil asked, suspicion deeply ingrained, eyeing Dan for anything that would bite, electrocute, or get him improbably sticky.

“Nothing bad,” Dan said, ludicrously and unreasonably offended. “Just this.” He held up an offensively pink piece of paper.

Phil stared at it. “What is that?” he asked.

“Read it and weep,” Dan said, handing it over with a grin.

“Yadda yadda yadda, Certificate of – what?! Did you _make_ this?!”

“No,” Dan scoffed. “When would I have had time to make it? I mean, I’m committed to freaking you out, but even I don’t care _that_ much.”

“Where did you _find_ this?” Phil asked.

“In my jeans pockets,” Dan said cheerfully. “I just wanna know how much we _paid_ for that. I mean, _look_ at it. It’s horrible.”

“Yeah,” Phil agreed, looking back down at it. He kind of didn’t want to have too much physical contact with it – he was holding one corner between his thumb and forefinger. There was just something grubby about that shade of pink. “Is that ClipArt?”

“Probably,” Dan agreed, delighted. “It’s probably signed by Elvis. Wait, is that a thing? Like, you know, they’ve got to learn to sign the name like he did?”

“They’re probably taught it at Elvis School,” Phil shrugged.

“I- I mean, I really don’t think they are,” Dan disagreed. “Like, I think they’re more worried about whether you can do the hip-thrust. You know, like this.”

“Dan, please stop that,” Phil said urgently. Dan curled his lip in a passable impression of Elvis, and continued thrusting. “Please. Please stop,” Phil tried again, then turned back to his laptop and waited for Dan’s attention span to give out. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long.

“I’m gonna Google this,” Dan said, producing his phone from the pocket of one of Phil’s hoodies, which he had shamelessly purloined. “Cos it’s gotta be, what, a roadside stall or something? You know, like, go to Vegas, come back with a marriage certificate-”

“Freak out your friends and alienate your family,” Phil agreed.

“Can we just agree now that none of our parents are ever seeing this?” Dan asked, tapping away at his phone. There was a moment’s silence while Phil tried to imagine showing the monstrosity to his mother and his brain did a very good impression of an ‘Error 404: Page Not Found’ display. Then Dan piped up again. “Oh, hey, it’s a real place!”

“Well, yeah,” Phil pointed out, not hugely interested in the origin story of their terrible souvenir. “Unless we got it from a travelling mirage or something. And we were drunk, but not so drunk we’d still be hallucinating now.” He shuddered at the mere mention of alcohol. From now on, green smoothies. And no more Haribo.

“No, no no, I mean, it’s like a real chapel,” Dan insisted. “Look.” He flipped his phone round and showed Phil the screen.

The website was almost as pink as the certificate, and Phil recoiled. “Oh, hey, WordArt to go with ClipArt. God, that’s _awful_.” As if to add insult to injury, auto-play wheezed into life with a horrible tinny version of The Wedding March, and Dan hastily flicked his phone onto silent.

“Yeah,” he agreed, but he was starting to frown a little. He opened his mouth, and shut it again – then he took a breath, opened his mouth, and shut it yet again.

“What?” Phil asked, long-suffering.

“Well, like – they’re a real chapel. Like,” he said, looking back at his phone and scrolling through it with his thumbs, “they have a pricelist and everything.”

“Sooo?” Phil asked, dragging the word out, interest piqued but not entirely on board.

“Well,” Dan said slowly, “they don’t _look_ like the sort of place that hands out shitty fake marriage certificates.”

“OK,” Phil said, still not entirely sure he found the conversation more interesting than Tumblr. Dan was apparently intent on getting some point across, though, so he looked up. “What?” he asked.

“You – you don’t think this could be _real_ , do you?” Dan had that smile on his face, the one that meant he wanted to be reassured that everything was fine and they had in no way fucked up.

Phil considered it for a bare second. “Um, no. No, I absolutely do not think that,” he said, and went back to Tumblr.

“It’s just,” Dan began, and Phil stifled a sigh. “I _really_ don’t think these guys just hand out certificates like this one.”

“OK,” Phil said again, patiently. “So, what are you saying? We got drunk and got married in Vegas?”

Dan huffed out an unreassuring laugh. “What? No. No, no – no. I mean, maybe? But no, shut up, it’s not possible is it?”

Phil thought about it. “Well, it’s _possible_ , but it’s not _likely_ ,” he said frankly.

Dan flumped down on the sofa next to him. “We were _very_ drunk,” he said tentatively, and while he still looked amused, he was also beginning to look a little worried.

Phil quirked a grin at him. “Yeah,” he agreed emphatically. “ _So_ drunk. I don’t think even the least self-respecting Elvis is going to look at two wasted British dudes and go, ‘ah, yes, these guys are clearly of sound mind and may be joined in unholy matrimony’.”

Dan snorted, and there was a moment’s silence. Phil tentatively went back to his laptop. Then: “But-!” Phil sighed and let his head flop back. “Yes, I know,” Dan said, half-impatient, half-apologetic. “I overthink things. Just let me overthink it, OK? And then it will be over, and you can go back to neopets or whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Oh please,” Phil scoffed, but closed his laptop. “OK. Let’s have it.”

“Well, firstly,” Dan said thoughtfully, “how many people saw us at this place? And not in like, a gay freak out way,” he added hastily, “but in a, like, this is not gonna be the _best_ thing for us. I mean, it’s just not gonna look great, you know?” Phil nodded – that was a fair point.

“Well, you know, it’s us,” he said fairly. “They might just think it’s endearing.”

“And secondly,” Dan said, ignoring him, “if this place doesn’t just give out certificates – and I don’t think they do – why have we got one?”

Phil opened his mouth and shut it again. “You know what, that’s a fair point too,” he agreed uneasily. “OK, so – what do you think happened? You think we actually got married?”

“Well, no,” Dan said thoughtfully, “you need a licence for that.” Phil dimly remembered the days of Dan’s hated law course. “And I don’t think anyone would have given us a licence that night, you know? What with the slurring, and the smell of alcohol, and the stupid giggling – you giggle a lot when you’re drunk.”

“I know,” Phil said apologetically.

“No, no – it’s endearing. Mostly. No, right, look,” Dan said, standing up and looming for a moment over Phil before he started to pace, hands gesticulating wildly. “So, I reckon, like, someone probably made the comment ‘oh you two are so sweet, you should just get married!’, like they do every time we get drunk with any of our friends, because all our friends are awful. And this time we went, ‘ _fine_ , we _will_ ’.” Dan’s voice went over so slightly camp before he slumped down into an unfairly accurate impersonation of Phil’s normal posture. Phil took it on the chin. “And then we turned up at, like, the nearest wedding chapel we could find, and said, ‘we want to get married’, and they went, ‘er, sirs, I don’t think that’s a good-’ and we went, ‘we _want_ to get _married_ ’, so they married us just to shut us up.”

“OK,” Phil agreed, because yes, that did sound vaguely plausible. “I mean, it sounds a bit stupid, even for us – even for drunk us – but yeah, I mean. It’s not impossible.”

“Aw, come on,” Dan said, sitting next to him on the sofa and creeping closer, putting a hand tenderly on Phil’s shoulder. “I bet it was your dream wedding. You know, the flowers… the music… Elvis…”

He inched ever closer, and Phil hastily moved his laptop onto the coffee table before Dan could knock it off Phil’s lap with one of his knees. “Mind that laptop!” he said hastily, and Dan pouted ridiculously at him.

“You’re no fun,” he said petulantly.

“Well, apparently I’m plenty of fun,” Phil said, grinning at him. “Because you married me.”

“No,” Dan corrected him. “I had a wedding ceremony with you. And I bet it was _beautiful_.” He slithered closer again, a look of unholy glee in his eyes, increasingly encroaching on Phil’s personal space. “Can’t you see it? Can’t you, Phil? ‘Do you, Daniel Illegible Scrawl Howell, take this bro, Philip Smiley-Face Lester, to be your lawfully wedded bro?’ And then I bet I took your face tenderly in my hands,” he went on, suiting his actions to his words and forcing Phil to look at him with one hand solidly across his cheek, “looked deep into your eyes,” Phil shifted, deeply uncomfortable, “and said ‘ayyyyy – no homo.’”

Phil cracked up and slapped Dan’s hands away. “I can see it,” he agreed, when he could speak. “It’s hideous and I love it.”

Dan was grinning in the pleased way he did whenever he managed to make Phil really laugh, somehow oddly diffident even after all these years. “I know, right?” he said. “And look, you actually did put a smiley face after your name. I’m glad you got the wedding you always dreamed of.”

“Thank you for making all of my dreams a reality,” Phil agreed, straight-faced.

“It is literally all I live for,” Dan told him sweetly. Then he paused, frowning a little. “D’you reckon we should give these guys a ring?” he asked slowly. “I mean, you know. To check when it was and who might have seen it and stuff?”

Phil thought about it, then shrugged. “Can we really be bothered?” He asked honestly. He was really quite happy to let whatever had happened in Vegas stay very firmly in Vegas. Whatever had happened, it could only end in humiliation for both of them.

“Well, on the one hand, no,” Dan said. “And on the other hand, I want to get surprised by our wedding photos even less than I want to ring up a wedding chapel and ask for details of my drunken mistakes.”

“And you want to find out whether there was an Elvis impersonator.”

“And I really want to find out whether there was an Elvis impersonator,” Dan agreed. “Dream wedding, Phil. Dream wedding.”

“Yeah, OK,” Phil nodded. “Is this you angling for me to Google the number for you?”

“Well, you have the laptop,” Dan said winningly.

“Your phone is literally right there,” Phil complained, but he was already flipping open his laptop. “OK, Little White Chapel of – oh, God – Little White Chapel of Heavenly Bliss. Drunk us has no taste.”

“Sober us has no taste,” Dan corrected him, waving at their living room. Phil shot him a look – he _liked_ their living room. “Drunk us can’t even _spell_ ‘taste’.”

“Oh my God, this is the worst website ever designed,” Phil said, hastily mashing the mute button as the mangled strains of the Wedding March started to come through again.

“Are there little flowers following the mouse?” Dan asked, craning his head over Phil’s shoulder. “That’s _obscene_.”

“I think it’s meant to be confetti,” Phil said fairly, hitting the link to the ‘Contact Us’ part of the website. “You’re phoning them.”

“Of course I’m phoning them,” Dan said, affronted. “I don’t want to listen to you stutter for ten minutes over a long-distance phone line.”

“Rude,” Phil said, only half paying attention. He put his laptop on the table where Dan could see it, and grinned at him. “Alright, your turn.”

“What’s the time difference between here and Vegas again?” Dan asked, already reaching for his phone.

They checked.

“You mean I’ve got to wait _four hours_?!”

**

They waited and clock-watched until five pm, when the chapel would actually be open, then Dan visibly steeled himself to make the call.

“As my husband, I’m going to insist you help me pay my phone bill,” he said as a parting shot, and Phil pulled a face which he hoped adequately got across his sentiment of ‘in your dreams’.

He watched as Dan held the phone to his ear and stared out the window, and could almost see the moment someone picked up.

“Yes, hi – Hi! Sorry to bother you, I know it’s early, but, um. So, my – um, I had a commitment ceremony at your chapel about five days ago?” He paused. “Yes – yes – oh. Yes, thank you, it was, ah – very nice. Yes, we were completely happy with it. No, no, it’s not a complaint! Don’t worry! It’s just, um, because we’re not American and we don’t live in America, we need to- yes, that’s it.” He smiled a little. “Legalities. We’ve got to jump through some hoops over here. We were just wondering, to make it official, what we would need?”

He clicked his fingers in Phil’s direction, and Phil handed him a pen, turning over the marriage certificate for him to write on.

“Not that,” Dan hissed, moving the mouthpiece away. “Post-its. On the mantel-piece.”

Phil rolled his eyes and fetched the post-its.

“Right, sorry,” Dan said brightly. “Could you repeat that for me? Yep, OK – OK – yep – ri- brilliant. Yes, we understand. No, no, that’s actually it – that’s all we were ringing about. Though, um. If you could just run a check for us? Because I think we’re going to need some fairly exact details of when and where the ceremony took place, and we’ve got your address and contact details, but…?” Phil gave him a thumbs-up and mouthed ‘nice’ at him, deeply impressed by Dan’s low cunning, and Dan grinned and mimed a bow. “Sorry! Yes. Daniel James Howell? Yeah, sorry, that’s H-O-W-E-L-L. Yes, two ‘L’s. Yep, Dan, that’s it. And, um, oh.” He met Phil’s eyes. “Phil Lester.” A strange look came over his face. “Yes, Phil with a P-H.” Phil snorted. There was a brief pause, then Dan laughed. “Yeah, computers always run slow when you need them. Don’t worry.” Another, longer pause, then Dan’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah – it would have been one of the late-night slots. No, that sounds about right. So, that was eleven pm on the nineteenth of August. Do you have any kind of reference number we could use? I mean, for the ceremony itself. I think we’re going to need as many details as you can give us.”

Phil was grinning, enjoying the performance Dan was putting in, and Dan offered him a smug grin in reply. “Right, great, OK, so that’s – groom’s name – groom’s name – ceremony date and time – and-” he froze, and Phil felt the grin freeze on his face. “What? Sorry, licence number? We didn’t have a licence, it was just supposed to be a commitment ceremony.”

Phil stared at Dan, feeling nerves starting to coil in his stomach. Suddenly things were taking a much more serious, much more worrying turn, and he didn’t feel either of them had been prepared for it.

“We did? Oh – OK, I, um, I see – right, so can you give us the licence number? Yeah,” he forced a laugh, “legalisation nonsense, that’s – that’s right.” For the first time in the conversation, he didn’t sound convincing. His face completely blank, he went on, “yeah, we’ll take it to a registry office. That’s fantastic. Oh, by the way, you don’t need to keep the licence, do you? We hang onto that, right? OK, brilliant. Thanks. Great, thank you. Yeah, we’ll look forward to getting those. Thank you so much. Yeah- yes, thanks. Thanks. Bye.” He hung up and turned to Phil. “Apparently, the CD of our wedding photos is in the post,” he said blankly. “So that’s one weight off my mind.”

“Dan,” Phil said urgently, the nerves twisting themselves up into a rope of panic thrumming down his spine.

“And apparently we should hang onto our marriage certificate,” Dan continued, ignoring him, “because if we don’t have it, we have to get a replacement sent over at great expense before we can get our marriage legally recognised _chez nous_.” He made jazz hands, his face a picture of misery.

“So,” Phil said slowly, still fighting panic and keen to get it clear in his own head, “we’re actually married. Like, we got a licence and everything.”

Dan slumped on the sofa next to him, and normally Phil would put a reassuring hand on his back, but something about this situation seemed to make it impossible. Instead, he settled for picking up the marriage certificate and examining it, just to have something to do with his hands.

“OK,” he said finally – anything to break the silence. “What do we do now?”

“Um.” Dan said blankly, having clearly already started the long downward slide into depressive apathy. “I don’t know?”

“Well, we got married,” Phil said, trying to keep things relatively upbeat. “We can get divorced.”

“Great,” Dan said listlessly, all of his earlier cheer evaporated in a moment. “I’m going to be divorced before I’m twenty-five. Every one of those bullshit forms you have to fill out where it says ‘marital status’, I’m going to have to put ‘divorced’. _You’re_ going to have to put ‘divorced’, and you’re not even thirty yet.”

“It’s not the end of the world,” Phil offered weakly, because that really didn’t sound fun.

“Well, until I find someone else stupid enough to marry me,” Dan said miserably. “Or get someone drunk enough, I suppose.”

Phil wanted to snap that he wouldn’t have had to be drunk to marry Dan, then reconsidered. Apart from anything, it wasn’t entirely true. Two years ago, maybe, but they were both older now and had supposedly learnt from their mistakes – and in the intervening two years, Dan had broken Phil’s heart, and Phil was pretty sure he’d broken Dan’s, and perhaps, yes, alcohol was the only way they were ever going to get anywhere near approaching the altar. Instead he just flipped open his laptop, and opened Google.

“What’re you doing?” Dan said apathetically.

“Looking up divorce lawyers.”

“Yeah, that’ll work,” Dan said, and Phil took several deep calming breaths.

“Well, we’re married, so we can get divorced,” he pointed out again, with admirable calm.

Dan almost visibly pulled himself together. “Sorry, I’m being a shit, aren’t I?”

“A bit, yeah,” Phil said kindly. “It’s OK, I’m used to it.”

Dan took a deep breath and let it out again. “OK, so divorce lawyer is a good idea. Small firm, maybe? Or, if we can swing it, someone who works for themselves, so we don’t end up as water-cooler gossip.”

Phil nodded. “Good idea. So, that’s what, a small solicitor’s firm? It’s a solicitor we need, right?”

Dan spread his hands. “Yeah?” he said with an audible shrug. “I mean, I’ve never got divorced before, so this is as new to me as it is to you.” He paused a little then said tentatively, “I mean, I didn’t do much family law, but they get pretty into, like, the matrimonial home and division of assets and stuff, you know?”

“So?”

“Well, the fact that we don’t want to divide anything up, and – I mean, I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t planning on moving out, and I really hope you weren’t, because I can’t afford the rent by myself – and, like, everything we own together, the cameras and stuff, we’re not splitting anything, it’s not like anything with a red sticker is Dan’s and anything with a blue one is Phil’s and I can’t use your stuff and you can’t use mine. Basically, we want everything to stay the same, but without the legally binding tie of matrimony.”

Phil considered the point, then shrugged. “That’s a problem for the lawyer. I mean, I hate to point it out, but all we have to be able to do is pay. Which we can.” He grimaced. “Even though my bank statement just told me I shelled out a hundred pounds to the Little White Chapel of Heavenly Bliss.”

“And even though we’d prefer not to have to,” Dan agreed.

“Yeah, that.” They sat in silence for a few moments, then Phil took a deep breath. “OK. So, we need to legalise the wedding here, right? And get in touch with someone about a divorce?”

“Yeah. OK. So, um, you look up what we need to do for legalisation? And I’ll – find us a divorce lawyer, I guess. I’ll get my laptop.”

As Dan stood, Phil made one last ditch attempt. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a coffee?”

**

Finding a lawyer to handle their divorce – horrified though he was that he had to think those words with his own brain – turned out to be easier than expected. After less than an hour of searching, Dan had found them a small high-street firm, with two lawyers, one secretary and a tiny office in Bromley. Judging by the potted history on their website, it was incredibly unlikely that they would have heard of two professional interneters, even if one of them did self-describe as a cult-leader, and even less likely that they’d care. Phil was right: all they had to do was make the fees.

He sent a link via iMessage to Phil, heard the chirrup of his computer and glanced up.

“Did you just text me?” Phil asked. “You’re literally next to me.”

“Yeah, but effort,” Dan said, eyes still on the computer.

“How difficult would it be to say ‘hey, Phil, have a look’?” Phil shook his head and opened the link, glancing through the simple, rather dated website. “Yeah, looks alright.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So, phone or email?”

Dan pretended to consider it for a bare second, then said, “email.” A second was all it took to imagine their incoherent rambling attempts to explain on the phone, and he wanted no part of it. “I’ll copy you in on it? No, wait, read it before I send it. It might look a bit weird to CC my soon-to-be-ex-husband in on the email to the divorce lawyer.”

“It’s a very _amicable_ divorce,” Phil pointed out helpfully.

“Well, there’s amicable, and then there’s us. ‘Yeah, we want to stay ‘married’,” Dan made air-quotes around the words, “we just don’t want to be _married_ , you know? Is there a way to divorce us, without, you know, _divorcing_ us?’” Phil snorted. “Alright. Are they going to think it’s weird if you’re copied in on the email?”

“I don’t know,” Phil shrugged. “Never got divorced before. But they’re coming into this with their eyes wide open. We’re going to be telling them that we’re two idiot friends who got drunk and got married by accident in Vegas. I don’t think you copying me in on the email is going to make this situation weirder.”

“So what you’re saying is, I’m grossly overthinking this.”

“Well, yeah. But I’m used to it by now.”

“OK, OK, fine. Right. Email.”

He stared at the open new mail window and the flashing cursor for a second, then started to type.

_Dear Mr Lawyer,_

_My name is Daniel, and I’m an idiot. My husband Philip is also an idiot. One of the reasons we’re both idiots – though by no means the only one – is that he is not supposed to be my husband. He is supposed to be my best friend, flatmate, and co-owner of my favourite camera. Also, we have a son together, by name, Dil. But don’t worry about him, he’s virtual, and we can probably work out some sort of timeshare agreement with the disc he’s on._

_We’re writing to you because we’re hoping – somewhat against hope – that you deal in the dissolution of drunk marriages. On a recent trip to Las Vegas, we over-indulged a little, and marriage-related mistakes were made. We’re still waiting on our wedding photos, so no word yet as to whether an Elvis impersonator was involved. I like to think that there was._

_The thing is, as you might imagine, we sobered up and realised that this was not a situation we wished to continue. It’s impractical, and also a little embarrassing to explain to various family members that the reason they weren’t invited to your wedding is because it was a largely tequila-fueled affair. However, we don’t want to split any of our shared assets – the aforementioned camera being one such asset, though not the only one. We also share a flat, and in some part, a bank account. What we want, is to return to our previous state of being. Untrammelled by the bond of marriage, but to all extents and purposes common law spouses._

_Is this a problem you would be interested in taking on, and do you think you can help us?_

_Yours truly,_

_Daniel Howell (and Philip Lester)._

“You cannot send that,” Phil told him, after reading it through. “I mean, it says everything we want it to, but not the way we want to say it, you know?”

“Still funny, though,” Dan mumbled to himself.

“Well, I laughed, but I don’t think the lawyer would,” Phil said, and returned to his .gov.uk trawling.

“You’re probably right,” Dan sighed, and deleted it before he could actually send it by accident.

_Dear Sir,_

_I would like to talk to you concerning the dissolution of my marriage. The circumstances are somewhat strange – on a recent holiday to Las Vegas, my flatmate and I managed to both apply for a marriage licence and act upon it, all while seriously intoxicated. As you might imagine, we were horrified when we realised what we had done. We share a flat and some assets, and we work together, and we don’t want any of these things to change. However, we do want the marriage dissolved. Would you be able to help us?_

_You can contact me at this address, and if you would like my phone number, please just let me know._

_Kind regards,_

_Daniel Howell_

“Better,” said Phil. “I mean, it still makes it obvious that we’re idiots, but we already knew that, and they should probably know that, so. Send it, I guess.”

“One step closer to divorce,” Dan agreed, and hit send.


	2. Chapter 2

_”Hi Dan, it’s Deborah! It’s been a while since we spoke, but in light of recent events, if you could give me a call so we can arrange a time to speak properly, that would be great. Ok, thanks, thanks, thanks, bye!”_

“Oh fuck,” groaned Dan, gently resting his head on the dining table.

It had been three months since they’d got back from Vegas, and slowly but surely, their accidental marriage had turned from The Worst Thing Ever to one of those things that had to be dealt with, but that they never actually got round to dealing with. Until two days before, when they found out what The Worst Thing Ever actually looked like. After three months’ blessed reprieve, someone, somewhere with too much time on their hands, had somehow managed to find the grainy photos of Dan and Phil falling out of Las Vegas City Hall at eleven o’clock at night. After that and a bit of probing, getting hold of the marriage certificate had been child’s play because civil registers in Nevada were a matter of public record, and any idiot could search for ‘Daniel Howell.’

The result had been a barrage of phone calls – their agent, the BBC, YouTube, their parents – at eight am. While they slept, the Internet had imploded, the BBC had exploded, and Random House were maintaining the dignified but rather strained silence that Dan had come to expect from them.

All in all, it was a bad day for Dan. This was worse even than the Video Of Which They Did Not Speak – a hundred times worse, because there was no way of shoving this one back in the closet by calling it an elaborate and unused prank. And worse, it was permanent in a way that had their families very worried indeed. Phil was still locked in his room, arguing with either his mother or Martyn; Dan hadn’t dared call his mother back. And on top of that, there was a professional aspect to the whole nightmare: Tina from the BBC had curtly informed them that she’d booked a meeting room for ten the next morning and that they’d be there come hell or high water, and both of them were still waiting for the other shoe to drop in the form of Random House’s response. In the meantime, Dan had time to kill, and a lot of anxiety to fill it with.

Sighing, he picked up his phone and called Deborah.

“Deborah Lane!” Deborah’s voice said, too upbeat for Dan’s current mood. Deborah was a middle-aged mother of two with a fondness for pugs and hatha yoga, and normally Dan got on with her very well.

“Hi, it’s Dan. Howell,” Dan added lamely, just in case she’d forgotten.

“Oh Dan,” Deborah said with a marked drop in warmth, and Dan had a feeling he was about to find out just what not getting on with Deborah looked like. “Thanks for calling back. How are you feeling? Though I suppose congratulations are in order!”

“Thanks,” said Dan, even more lamely. “Could we – uh. Can we organise a meeting for, um, basically as soon as possible? Y’know, in person, if possible?” He wasn’t risking phone bugs. “You, me, Phil. And Tim,” he added grudgingly. Tim was Phil’s agent, and a cyborg. He didn’t like Phil, and every living breathing creature liked Phil. Dan, unsurprisingly, disliked Tim.

“Oh?” Deborah said, sounding doubtful and a little worried. “Well, I could arrange with Tim and we could book you in for tomorrow-“

“I think it really has to be today,” Dan said shrilly and heard Deborah reach for her diary. There were some benefits to being a high-profile client.

“Ok, I – I’m sure we can fit something in.”

“Ok, awesome, thank you,” Dan said, relieved, running a hand through his unstraightened hair. “I can get Phil, we can be in a taxi and on our way in literally half an hour-“

“No,” Deborah said quickly. “We’ll come to you. This sounds like a problem, and if there’s a problem, you don’t go outside, you don’t see subscribers, no tweeting, no Facebook, nothing until you talk to us, ok?”

“At all?” Dan asked tentatively.

“Yes,” Deborah said, with unusual steeliness. “I have a free slot at eleven thirty. I’ll talk to Tim’s secretary, and I’ll make sure he’s there.”

“Good,” Dan said helplessly. “Well. Uh. Thanks? And, er. See you later.”

“Bye Dan.”

The dial tone rang in Dan’s ear, and he stared at Calcifer in the fireplace. “Shit,” he said and went to tap on Phil’s door. “Phil?” He called hopefully. There was an ominous silence from within. Then the door opened a crack.

“I was pretending I was dead,” Phil said, sounding tired. “So that none of this would be happening.”

“You’re not dead.”

“I know. Dan?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have a hug?”

“Sure, c’mere.” Surprised, Dan lurched forward and pushed the door open, wrapping his arms around Phil. Leaning his forehead on Phil’s shoulder, he muttered, “This sucks.”

“Tell me about it,” Phil chuckled humourlessly. “My mum just ripped me, like, three new ones. More than one, anyway.”

Dan pulled away to look at him. “Did you tell her-“ ‘it wasn’t real’ hung in the air between them.

Phil snorted. “I think I’m alive, so no. What did your mum say?”

Dan winced. “Haven’t talked to her.”

“Dan.”

“What, I called Deborah.”

Phil raised his eyebrows. “Ah yes, because your agent is far more important than your mother.”

“Right now, yeah,” Dan agreed. “She and Tim are coming over at eleven thirty.”

“What,” Phil said flatly.

“You might want to shower,” Dan told him. Phil had been in his bedroom since the news broke and he smelt like coffee sweat and biscuits. “Oh, and we’re not allowed to go on the internet until we’ve talked to them.”

‘What?” Phil said again, with more expression. “What am I supposed to do until then?”

“I dunno. Read a book? Watch TV? Ponder the inevitability of death? Shower,” he said pointedly.

Phil sighed and flapped a hand at him. “Fine, fine, I’m going. But, hey, Dan?”

Dan turned back in the doorway. “Yeah?”

“They know, right? Tim and Deborah? That it was-“

“Not as such,” Dan said carefully and Phil groaned.

“Tim is going to kill me with sarcasm.”

“Have you spoken to him yet?”

Phil shook his head gloomily. “No, but he left an email on my system telling me that he thought I’d outgrown this sort of nonsense.”

“Oh my god,” Dan said in tones of revelation. “He’s actually the antichrist.”

“Who you invited to our home,” Phil agreed. “Now go away. Apparently I have to shower before Satan turns up.”

“’Kay. I’ll be in crisis in the lounge if you want me.”

Bereft of his usual coping methods, Dan puttered. He tidied up the lounge, where he assumed they’d be having the meeting – plumping up the cushions, attempting to straighten out the sofa crease, even wiping down the surfaces. Then, in the kitchen, he even got out the cafetière they owned but never used, because they didn’t have any real coffee. Blowing it out and inhaling two years’ worth of dust, he poured some milk into a jug (given to him by his mother when she’d hoped that Dan would one day grow into some standards) and got out the best mugs, which had also never been used and also needed rinsing.

By the time Phil came into the kitchen, hair still damp from the shower, Dan had almost finished. Phil gaped at his preparations: Dan had even grudgingly laid out the last of the Maryland biscuits on a plate.

“Those are wasted on Tim,” Phil said. “He only eats souls.”

“Well, Deborah’s not Satan, so she can have some. If Tim goes for any, I’ll whack him on the back of the hand with a teaspoon.”

**

Tim ate four.

Dan watched him eat every one with growing bitterness, and said, “Thank you for coming,” purely to stop him from reaching for a fifth.

Tim grunted and Deborah gave him a strained smile. “So, what exactly is the problem?”

Dan and Phil exchanged glances before Dan stepped up to the metaphorical plate. “So, you know we’re married,” he began.

“Yes,” Tim said baldly. “We have become aware of the fact. We’d have appreciated a heads-up.”

"Yes, about that," Dan said, fighting past the urge to hide, "We. Didn't actually mean. To.”

“To…?’ Deborah said, frowning in confusion. “To tell us? Because, boys, I understand that you wanted privacy, and that’s fine, and obviously, getting married is not a career move, but for you-“

“No,” Dan interrupted, and then, like ripping off a plaster, said, “We didn’t mean to get married.”

There was a moment of airless silence, broken, of course, by Tim.

“I don’t understand, did you fall into a chapel?”

“No,” Dan said curtly and turned back to Deborah, recoiling with internal horror when he remembered that it was going to get worse. “We were – it was – “

“We’d been drinking,” Phil said, speaking for the first time in fifteen minutes. Dan shot him a grateful glance. ‘We’d been drinking’ sounded a hell of a lot better than ‘we were absolutely twatted.’ Phil smiled slightly and then subsided back into the sofa to avoid scrutiny. One of the reasons Dan hated Tim so much was that Phil was blatantly afraid of him.

He turned back to Deborah, who was massaging her temples in a worrying way.

“So, just to recap,” she said with a very forced calm. “You got married, in Vegas, by accident. While drunk. And that was three months ago. Are you even still married?”

“Uh,” Dan said, dropping his gaze to his lap and noticing the holes in his sleeves where he’d pushed his thumbs through the fabric. “We. Never got round to it.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Tim muttered, reaching for fifth biscuit.

"Well," Phil broke in, re-emerging from the sofa. "We did contact a lawyer and ask for advice, but we never heard back, and we chose him specifically.”

“Besides,” Dan said, picking up the thread, “We got back and then the book deadline came forward, and that took up most of our time; YouTube Rewind was happening, we’ve got to keep up our channels, and we’re still working at Radio 1, so. A lot was happening.”

“That’s fair,” Deborah acknowledged, shooting Tim a look. “So, do you have a plan?”

“No,” Dan said honestly. “We’ve got a meeting with the BBC tomorrow at ten. We’re not sure what we’re going to say –“

“We’re not sure what they’re going to ask,” Phil added.

“We should be there.” This came, surprisingly, from Tim, who had finished his biscuit, Dan noted resentfully. “If they penalise you for unfavourable publicity, we need to get our lawyers onto it asap.”

Dan heard Phil swallow. Personally, he thought he might be sick.

“At the moment, we’re OK, because as far as everyone is concerned, this is legit, and you’re the secret Internet romance of the century,” Tim continued. “Right now, this is great publicity for both of you. That’s going to change very quickly if we go out and say ‘sorry guys, this was a drunken cock-up.’”

He shot a nasty look at Phil; Dan shot one right back.

“But this can all be discussed tomorrow,” Deborah said with false brightness. “Most important now is going to be Random House. We need to work out what we want to say to them. What do you want the story to be?”

“Preferably the truth?” Dan said tentatively and Deborah winced.

“Alright,” she said in a tone that heavily implied it was their funeral. “This may have something of an effect on the book deal: we’ll have to get the lawyers to look over the contract before we talk to them.”

By now, Dan was definitely feeling ill. It was Phil who took over the reins.

“Ok,” he said, nodding. “We’ll deal with that when we get to it. Right now, I think the BBC has to be our priority. We’d be glad to have you at the meeting tomorrow.”

“That’s settled then, good,” Deborah said, standing briskly. “We’ll set up a meeting with Random House – I’ll CC you in on any emails we send to them – and we’ll see you tomorrow at ten. We’ll come back to you with more thoughts about our strategy-“ they had a strategy, Dan thought helplessly, “- for dealing with this, and make a decision tomorrow.”

It was clear the meeting was over, and neither Deborah nor Tim were keen to prolong the agony. They obviously wanted to escape and plan the next move. Dan let out a long breath as he closed the front door behind them, resting his head against the door for a second then jogging back up the stairs before any of his neighbours could see him.

Phil was in the kitchen, putting the mugs in the dishwasher. The cafetière was already washed up and sitting on the draining board. “So that was hell,” he said conversationally.

“Better than I expected, tbh,” Dan said, leaning against the table and gloomily looking at the empty Maryland packet.

“Really?” Phil said sceptically.

“No one cried, screamed, fainted or tried to kill us,” Dan pointed out and Phil nodded.

“Yeah. Our book deal might be done, the BBC might axe us, but we’re not dead. Just kind of wish we were.”

“The hardest bit’s over,” Dan lied, envisaging the meeting with the BBC and the inevitable phone call with his mother. He was good at lying to himself. He never usually could lie to Phil, but Phil wasn’t looking for the truth, he was looking for reassurance, and he let it pass.

There was a moment of silence as Phil switched on the dishwasher, and then the kettle for his fourth cup of coffee. “Y’know,” he said slowly. “I kind of forgot. That we were married. Isn’t that stupid? I mean, I remembered, but in like a ‘haha, I got married to Dan’ sort of way.”

“Huh,” Dan said, picking at the loose Formica on the countertop. He knew exactly what Phil meant, but it still hurt. “It’s ok. I forgot too. We’re going to be ok, right? Like, leaving everything else out – YouTube, the Beeb, that stuff – are _we_ going to be ok?”

For the first time since their agents turned up, Phil smiled at him. “Yeah. Course we are. After all the crap we’ve pulled, a Vegas wedding is nothing.”

“OK,” Dan said, trying to smile back. The thing was, he could never usually lie to Phil, but Phil was a better liar than Dan was. Normally that didn’t matter, because Phil was a better liar but a more truthful person, but right now, Dan had no idea what the truth was going to turn out to be.

**

Dan’s phone call with his mother was hell. 

“I just can’t believe you didn’t tell us,” she said quietly. “I mean – you’ve always been a little- but I didn’t think-”

“Mum,” he broke in, swallowing down hurt and frustration, and all the other things that would not make the conversation any easier. “I’m not married to Phil.”

“What?” she said, taken aback.

Dan took a deep breath. In a strange way, he’d hazily imagined that confessing it to their agents would make it easier to tell his mother, but that was obviously nonsense, because he didn’t have to maintain a professional relationship with his mum, and she’d known him since he was born, so she was always going to be a harder sell.

“When we were in Vegas,” he said slowly, “we got – we’d been drinking,” thank you Phil, for that handy phrase, “and we- we made some mistakes. ”

“Right,” his mum said, a tense note in her voice. “‘Some mistakes’.”

“Yes,” Dan said quietly.

“What sort of mistakes?” she asked edgily.

“The getting married kind,” he said wearily. “Without meaning to actually…” he took a deep breath, “be married.”

“Right,” she said again, the stressed, distant note in her voice still very pronounced. “And neither of you thought to tell us about it? Or did Phillip tell his parents?”

“No, we were going to get it sorted,” Dan said, and he could feel himself responding to her tone by becoming tense and hostile too. If there was one thing he envied Phil, it was his easy relationship with his parents – they might get angry with each other, they might drive each other mad, but they came back together so easily afterwards. Dan loved his parents, and they loved him, but sometimes it felt like they couldn’t so much as chat without it devolving into something resembling cold war. 

It was no wonder, he thought bitterly, that he’d preferred to ring his agent before his own mother.

“Well, did you?”

“No, we’ve been busy,” he said shortly.

“Of course,” his mum said, and sighed. “Honestly, Daniel, this is just-”

“Mum, I don’t need you to tell me that I fucked up.”

“Language,” she said automatically, and Dan lost it.

“Oh, for God’s sake, who cares what language I use?” he demanded. “I know I’ve _screwed_ up, I don’t need you to tell me! I rang to let you know, not to ask for you to judge me too!”

There was a moment of frozen silence, then his mother cleared her throat. “Are you done?” she asked.

Dan shut his eyes. “For the moment,” he muttered. “That sort of depends on you.”

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you, Dan,” she said, with the mournful tone he hated more than any other. “This is – this is an enormous – well, I won’t say ‘mistake’, but it’s a very big thing, and… Your dad and I would both have appreciated hearing about it from you, not from the internet. We weren’t-”

“Yeah, I know, you weren’t expecting my life to go like this, and you don’t feel like you understand it at all, and sometimes you wish I’d just talk to you.”

“Well, since you put it like that, yes. Is that so unreasonable? Dan, you’re twenty-three now, and this is a life-changing – yes, I _am_ going to call it a mistake. You and Phil spend so much time together, and I know you’re young and of course you’re going to make mistakes, but this is just very – very _silly_.” It was the word ‘silly’ that did it. Dan fumed silently, feeling his heart pound in his ears as he tried to convince himself not to be furious. “And I’m glad that you and Phil are such good friends-”

“Well, it’s great you feel like that now,” Dan snapped sarcastically, “because you definitely didn’t feel that way four years ago.”

“Of course I didn’t feel like that four years ago!” his mother snapped back. “Because you were _nineteen_ , and he was twenty-three, and you were _not friends_. Of course I was worried!”

And, Dan added privately, because they’d met on the Internet, and to his parents, the Internet had been – and to some extent still was – a place populated by perverts and people trying to buy second hand furniture. And since Phil clearly hadn’t been in the market for any IKEA, there was only one camp to put him in.

“Well, can we stop worrying now?” Dan demanded. Distantly, he heard Phil’s bedroom door open and close, and his footsteps pad down the hall, his hatred of confrontation as always overriding his desire to eavesdrop. He heard the stairs creak and knew Phil had gone up to the office to give him some privacy.

“No, I can’t stop worrying, Dan, I’m your mother,” she told him. “And clearly I have something to worry about. Look,” with audible effort, she softened her voice. “I know you don’t think I understand, but to me, it’s very clear you never quite got over him, and I just think that this whole situation is going to end badly, and – and it’s very unhealthy, for both of you.”

“But mostly for me, right?” Dan asked testily, bristling as always at the intimation that he couldn’t look after himself.

“Yes, obviously, mostly for you,” his mother said quietly. “You’re my son. If you think Phil’s mother doesn’t feel exactly the same way, you have another think coming.”

“Alright,” Dan said, controlling himself with an effort, because she was trying so he should too. “I can understand where you’re coming from, I guess. But I’m mainly worried about my job right now, because this is going to – I’m just really worried about my job, OK? I just wanted to let you and Dad know, and – and I have to go.”

“Dan-”

“I’ll give you a ring soon, OK, Mum?”

He hung up before she could say anything else, fumed for a second, then threw one of his pillows against the wall with an indeterminate sound of frustration. Then, feeling a bit ashamed, he picked it up and hugged it for a moment, wondering where in the conversation things had gone so wrong. It had started out – well, difficult, obviously, but more-or-less on track. And then it had derailed so spectacularly that Dan wasn’t entirely sure what they’d even been arguing about when he’d hung up.

It was a depressingly familiar path. His parents loved him and God knew he loved his parents, but sometimes it felt as if they were on completely different wavelengths.

As if on cue, his phone buzzed with a text. It had been doing that all morning, but he’d put almost all his contacts on Do Not Disturb, which meant this was one he actually wanted to see.

Adrian: _So I hear I’m the good son today. Whatcha do?_

_Fucked up. Don’t Google me for a few days, k?_

_You really overestimate how often I Google you,_ Adrian sent back, and Dan laughed, which was a surprise because five minutes ago the last thing he’d wanted to do was laugh.

_really? You don’t do it all the time?_

_Sure, bro._ Then, a few seconds later, Dan’s phone pinged again. _She’ll come round. You know how she gets. Dad’s chill._

Which was true, Dan thought, as he thumbed his phone off. Their mum would freak out, overreact, and then feel bad about it. There’d be a few days of stalemate, followed by tentative overtures towards reconciliation, and sometimes, depending on the situation, she’d apologise. He was pretty sure she wasn’t going to apologise this time, considering even he was fairly certain she was right.

He threw his phone on the bed and headed back down the corridor. “Phil? You want food?” he called up the stairs.

Phil appeared in the door of the office. “Oh, you’re off the phone!” he said, smiling as though he hadn’t heard the shouting. Dan knew perfectly well that Phil had heard at least half Dan’s conversation, and had definitely heard his own name, but he was pretending it hadn’t happened, and for that Dan was infinitely grateful. “I could eat. What’re you offering?”

“That depends on what we’ve got in the fridge and what I can be arsed to cook,” Dan told him. “Come help me decide.” Phil trailed after him into the kitchen, where Dan rooted around in the fridge, finally coming up with some chicken breasts on their last legs, some Philadelphia and some frozen spinach. “Pasta?” Dan offered into the unimpressed silence.

“Pasta,” Phil agreed. “We might even have an onion somewhere.”

“It’s probably growing little onions by now. We shouldn’t split up a family, Phil.”

“Can we do a shop after dinner? Please? I miss vegetables,” Phil said plaintively.

“Sure we can. It’s your turn to pay, and I can’t help noticing that we’re low on champagne and smoked salmon.”

“And we’d better stock up on foie gras, too, huh,” Phil sniped, flicking the kettle on and grabbing the pasta from the cupboard.

“You read my mind.”

**

“So,” Phil said, over the remains of their rather sad dinner while The Walking Dead buffered agonisingly slowly. “You talked to your mum?”

“Oh, you heard that,” Dan said in tones of exaggerated surprise. “I had no idea.”

“Dan. Can you not do that, please. You know how much I hate it when you refuse to communicate like a real boy.”

Dan sighed. “She’s pissed off right now,” he admitted. “But we’re pretty sure she’ll calm down in a couple of days.”

“We?” Phil said, scraping up the last of his Philadelphia-spinach-chicken extravaganza with what he knew was unnecessary care and carefully not looking at Dan.

“Me and Adrian. He said Dad’s cool about it though, so I guess that’s OK.”

Phil tried to imagine what ‘cool about it’ looked like when you found out that your son had accidentally married his best friend, and had a brief but vivid image of Dan’s father coming after him with a shotgun in the night. He shook his head to clear it and pressed play.

He’d always sort of been aware that Dan’s parents hadn’t been over the moon about his relationship with their nineteen-year-old son, but at the time, he’d been twenty-three and very much in love, and he hadn’t cared. The fact that this was a boy he’d met over the internet and who’d apparently imprinted on him hadn’t given him much pause, except to worry occasionally whether or not he might be taking advantage of Dan. But nineteen-year-old Dan had been very insistent about what he wanted, and honestly, Phil had been enough in love to just go with it, and not ask questions Dan clearly didn’t want him to ask.

And Phil had been living by himself in Manchester, and hadn’t had to answer to anyone. His own parents had been a little concerned as well, but he wasn’t the teenager who’d met his boyfriend over the internet, and in any case, Phil didn’t have to live by their rules anymore. It had always been a little jarring to remember that Dan actually did still have to listen to his parents, so whenever possible he hadn’t remembered it. He hadn’t known what sort of a person that made him, and he didn’t like thinking about it now. 

Next to him, whole and apparently undamaged by the traumatic experience of dating twenty-three-year-old Phil, Dan made an interested noise as someone’s throat got ripped out on screen. “Have you told your mum yet?” he asked, and Phil winced.

“Not yet,” he said, and shoved the last piece of chicken into his mouth. “Tomorrow,” he said indistinctly.

“Can’t be tomorrow, we’re at the Beeb tomorrow,” Dan said implacably. “After dinner. After this episode. If I have to suffer, you have to suffer.”

“And there it is, the basis of our friendship,” Phil agreed, and let his head thunk back onto the sofa. “Fine.”

**

“What.” 

“We’re not _actually_ married,” Phil repeated patiently. He was sitting on his bed, back to the headboard, and he should have been comfortable. 

He wasn’t.

“Yes, that’s what I thought you said,” his mum said slowly. “What does that mean?”

Phil wondered how Dan had done it, but Dan was often a lot braver than he was, so he’d probably come right out and said it, and just let things go from there. And Dan’s relationship with his parents was very different to Phil’s, and Phil sometimes thought he worried a lot more about disappointing his parents than Dan did. That or Dan had always felt that he was a bit of a disappointment, to everyone not just his parents, so he didn’t bother trying anymore, but that was so depressing that Phil tried not to think it.

“Well, we – you know how people are about us,” he tried awkwardly, and was a little disappointed when his mum just waited him out. “Even our friends, everyone thinks we’re – people make jokes about it.”

“About you and Dan.”

“Yeah,” Phil said quietly. “And we were very drunk, and I guess we thought it would be funny, because everyone thinks stupid things are funny when they’re drunk, and we just… it went way too far.”

“I’ve done a lot of stupid things, Phil, but I’ve never been so drunk I thought getting married was a silly thing to do which I could laugh about later,” his mum said, her voice rich with the disappointment he’d been dreading.

“I know,” Phil said in a small voice. “And I’m really sorry, mum.”

“I’m upset and sad for you, Phil, but you don’t need to apologise to me,” she said quietly. “Obviously it’s not ideal, but I’m more worried than anything else.”

“I’m worried too,” he admitted, and she sighed.

“I just bet you are, sweetheart,” she said, with a little sympathy. “Look, I know this probably isn’t the right time, but have you thought at all about how you want things to go from here?”

“Well, we’re gonna get a divorce,” Phil said, trying to sound practical and adult and as though he was totally capable of running his own life.

“Of course,” she agreed, “but I meant – you and Dan.”

“What about me and Dan,” Phil asked tensely. 

“Because this is going to change things.”

“Is it?” Phil said, bewildered. “I mean, I know, of course it is, but only temporarily. Right?” His mother sighed and Phil felt a deep sense of foreboding. “What?”

His mother hesitated. “Well. I know how much you have going on together – which is fantastic – but won’t this strain things? ‘Divorce’ is a big word to throw around, Phil-“

“I know-”

“-and whatever happens, it’s not going impact just you and Dan, it’s going to have a knock-on effect on everyone else involved in your lives. People you don’t know! Everyone who watches you, follows you and supports you. And closer to home, there’s Dan’s family, your dad, me, Martyn. Part of Martyn’s job depends on your career, Phil-“ Phil winced; it was something they didn’t talk about because it wasn’t fair on anyone. It didn’t make it any less true.

“I know-”

“That’s my point!” His mother said, frustrated. “You don’t know! You won’t know anything until it’s happened and you’ve gone through it. Just like-” she paused and then forged ahead, evidently determined. “Just like when you and Dan broke up the first time.”

“What?” Phil said, confused, because what? What did his relationship with Dan, already two years gone, have to do with this?

“You didn’t know how that was going to feel. Remember how horrible it was.”

Phil remembered exactly how horrible it was. “But that was – that was completely different! We didn’t sit down and plan it, ok, it was a mutual decision, but in an ideal world-“

The ensuing silence was painful. “I don’t want to rub things in, Phil,” his mother said cautiously, “but you didn’t sit down and plan to get married, either.” She paused. “Look, what I mean is, you and Dan are very close, despite – and it’s your friendship, of course, but,” she made the same inarticulate sound of frustration that Phil often caught himself making. “I don’t know how this is going to go. I wish I did; I’m your mother and I want to have all the answers for you. But as mistakes go, this is a big one. I think it’s going to be very hard. For you in particular.”

“Why?” Phil said numbly.

“Oh sweetheart,” his mother said instead of an answer, and Phil let his head thunk back against the wall, eyes closing. “I don’t know about Dan, but I do know that a part of you never let him go after – well. Speaking of Dan,” she said, putting an uptick back in her voice, “I’m assuming his parents know.”

“Hmm,” Phil said, vaguely affirmative, still smarting at the unexpected blow. The whole Dan… thing was another subject unspoken by family agreement. “I think so? He talked to his mum this morning. I don’t think they took it well.”

“Well,” his mum said slowly. “If I’m being honest, if your situations were reversed, I would have taken it very badly indeed.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well,” his mother sounded as awkward as Phil had ever heard her. “He’s still very young- I know,” she said louder over Phil’s indignant squawk, “-he’s twenty-three and more than capable of making his own decisions, but you can bet your boots that his parents still look at him and see their baby. Goodness knows that’s what I think when I look at you, and you’re twenty-seven. And-“ she broke off.

“And?” Phil pressed tiredly, feeling as though they might as well plumb the sordid depths of this particular topic, since they were on it. If people had been sitting on some unexpressed feelings, it was probably for the best to get them out now before the shit really hit the fan.  
“Well. Back when you were a- a thing-“

“Dating, mum, you can say it,” Phil said, eyes still closed. Perhaps if he kept his eyes shut long enough, the world would quietly disappear. 

“Alright then. Back when you and Dan were dating, your dad and I – well. The only reason we didn’t put our oar in was because we know you. We knew you weren’t going to take advantage or do anything inappropriate because you’re a good boy and we brought you up better than that.”

“Uh-huh,” Phil managed. They were skirting perilously close to a thought he’d had before and hated examining.

“But you have to understand, love, if we were Dan’s parents-“

“I know, mum. I really, honestly do.”

“What do you think I’m trying to say?” his mum prompted, horribly gentle.

“That he was too young,” Phil said dully. “That maybe I did take advantage, just none of us noticed. That in a way I’m responsible for this whole thing because years ago I should have said ‘hey Dan, so long and thanks for all the fish, how about we do some collabs when we meet up.’”

His mother didn’t know the reference, but she did know her son, so it didn’t matter. “You’re half-right,” she said, and Phil felt a powerful sense of relief that she wasn’t going to lie to him to make him feel better. “ _This_ is not your fault.”

“Everything else, though, right?”

“No. You just want someone to blame, and it’s easier to blame yourself even if both of you are responsible. Back before… perhaps we all should have looked a little closer. Your dad and me, too, because God knows it wasn’t the best thing for you, either.”

Understatement of the century, Phil thought to himself.

“But that’s water under the bridge. The reason I’m so worried now is because you and Dan have a lot riding on your relationship, and whatever happens, it’s going to put a strain on things.”

Phil swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I know,” he repeated for what felt like the billionth time. 

“I’m sure you can imagine, yes,” his mother sighed. “But your dad and I are here, if you ever want to talk.”

“How is Dad?” Phil asked tentatively.

“He’s. He’ll be fine,” his mother said diplomatically and Phil groaned. “It was just a bit of a shock, love.”

Phil rolled sideways and half-buried his face in his pillow. “I’m an idiot,” he mumbled, still clutching his phone.

“Well, you’re both idiots. It doesn’t mean we love you any less. How is Dan?” there was the slight note of forbearance in Phil’s mother’s voice that she used whenever Dan had done something reprehensible on which she wasn’t going to call him. Phil took it on the chin.

“Not good,” Phil said shortly. 

His mum sighed. “No, I thought not. If you need to get away, either of you, you know we’re always here.”

“Thanks, mum.”

“And Phil – listen. Yes, he was young. But so were you. And you loved him. Don’t beat yourself up about it just because I brought it up.”

“Ok,” Phil said, more to get her to stop talking than anything else.

“We wish this hadn’t happened,” she persisted through the forcefield of his denial. “But we will always support you.”

“Thanks,” Phil tried his level best to sound as sincerely grateful as he should have been. Right now, he didn’t feel as though he deserved support.

“I have to go; your dad’s making dinner. Text me and let me know if anything happens.”

Phil hadn’t even told her about the conversation with Tim and Deborah and the BBC. “I will,” he said weakly.

When they’d hung up, he let the phone drop onto the bed and very slowly rolled himself up in his duvet. If it hadn’t been for the pressing need to take off his jeans and glasses, he might very well have stayed there all night. 

This was officially the Worst Thing Ever. 

**


End file.
